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uk.sci.weather (UK Weather) (uk.sci.weather) For the discussion of daily weather events, chiefly affecting the UK and adjacent parts of Europe, both past and predicted. The discussion is open to all, but contributions on a practical scientific level are encouraged. |
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Norman Lynagh wrote: On Wed, 30 Dec 2015 11:52:36 +0000, Alan White wrote: With 410.4mm so far this month, December 2015 is the wettest month we've experienced since moving here in August 2002. This is a factually correct statement and this month is generating lots of similar statistics and it's very easy to see why, because such statistics are very easy to produce. Using the calendar month is very easy from a clerical point of view but it has no particular scientific basis. For recording purposes we merely use the calendar months for convenience. Equally legitimate would be to assume that the 'clerical' month started on. say, the 15th of each calendar month and this would produce different statistics. An added complication is that calendar months are not all the same length. A more useful statistic for comparison purposes would be the running 30-day rainfall totals starting on any day of the month. I've had a trawl through the rainfall measurements for Tideswell for the period from 1st Jan 2009 to date. The wettest calendar month (starting at 0900z on the 1st) was December 2011 with 224.4 mm. This, of course, covers a 31-day period. (December 2015 will have a much lower total). The highest 30-day total startiing on any day of the month was 233.9 mm in the 30 days ending 0900z on 3rd Dec 2015. This is 4.2% higher than the total for the highest calendar month. If I chose to start the 30-day period at any hour rather than just 0900z then I might find a slightly higher 30-day total but it's not so easy for me to do that as my daily measurements are made using a standard 5" manual rain gauge. The next highest 30-day total (09z-09z) was 233.0 mm in the 30 days to 13 Dec 2015 and after that is 232.8 mm in the 30 days to 4 Dec 2015. It's almost certain that November/December this year will produce record-breaking rainfall statistics for many locations in the British Isles but the statistics will have more legitimacy if they are not constrained to the calendar months. I was surprised that that highest 30-day total for Tideswell was only 4.2% higher than the highest total for a calendar month. I'd be interested learn how the statistcs for other locations compare. I have 66.3mm so far for this month in Leicester. Not much more than half the rainfall of December 2012. In fact 2012 had 5 months that were wetter than December 2015. That's calendar months of course. Martin -- Visit my weather station at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/m.dixon4/Cumulus/index.htm Believing is the start of everything to come. - Hayley Westenra |
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